Thread: FCC's New Hire Targeted Conservative Radio

Here we go there going to try and shut down free speech!!! I guess if you can't beat em you shut em down!!

FCC's New Hire Targeted Conservative Radio Stations in Writings
Mark Lloyd, the FCC's new chief diversity officer, laid out a "battle plan" for liberal activists to target conservative talk radio stations in 2007.

The FCC's new chief diversity officer laid out a battle plan two years ago for liberal activists to target conservative talk radio stations, and critics say they are concerned that he now will want to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine."

Mark Lloyd, who was named the associate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission last month, is under attack for authoring a June 2007 report entitled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" and a subsequent essay, "Forget the Fairness Doctrine."

Adopted in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine held that broadcasters were obligated to provide opposing points of views on controversial issues of national importance. The policy was halted under the Reagan administration

Lloyd insists he does not support reinstatement of the doctrine, but critics suspect he has a hidden agenda to curtail conservative talk radio. They say Lloyd is the wrong person for his new post.

Seton Motley, director of communications for the Media Research Center, said Lloyd instructed liberals to file complaints against conservative stations in "Forget the Fairness Doctrine."

"What he lays out is a battle plan to use the FCC to threaten stations' licenses with whom they do not agree with politically, and now he's at the FCC waiting to take their calls," Motley told FOXNews.com. "This is not about serving the local interest, it's about political opposition."

Lloyd, who wrote the essay during his tenure at the Center for American Progress, said the rise and influence of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio hosts were traced to "relaxed ownership rules" and other pro-business regulation that destroyed localism.

While he said he was not interested in reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, he called for "equal opportunity employment practices," "local engagement" and "license challenges" to rectify the that perceived imbalance. "Nothing in there about the Fairness Doctrine," he wrote.

"The other part of our proposal that gets the 'dittoheads' upset is our suggestion that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay. In other words, if they don't want to be subject to local criticism of how they are meeting their license obligations, they should pay to support public broadcasters who will operate on behalf of the local community."

In February, a report in the American Spectator said aides to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., met with FCC staff to discuss ways to re-enact Fairness Doctrine policies and to apply them to the Internet as well. Both the FCC and Waxman's office denied the report.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said at the time that President Obama opposed any move to bring back the policy. He reiterated that position to FOXNews.com on Monday.

While Obama continues to oppose the Fairness Doctrine publicly, Lloyd's appointment has some critics worried. Motley said the not-so-subtle move is "frightening."

"You read his essay and he's incessantly attacked Rush Limbaugh," Motley said. "He doesn't like conservative talk -- and now he's an official at the weapon to shut down conservative talk radio."

Lloyd, who declined to be interviewed at length for this story, told FOXNews.com there are "no plans or interest" in reinstating the policy.

The FCC confirmed that stance but refused to address Lloyd's prior statements.

In a statement, the commission said: "The FCC agenda does not include reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine or in any way censoring speech based on political views and opinions. ...

"The FCC's interest in promoting diversity goes back to core principles underlying the First Amendment. Our nation benefits from a vibrant marketplace of ideas representing different points of view. [Lloyd] will help ensure that the communications field is competitive and generates widespread opportunities."

Representatives from media watchdog groups Free Press and Media Matters declined to comment for this story. Officials at the Center for American Progress, the liberal think tank where Lloyd previously worked, also declined repeated requests for comment.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowksi announced Lloyd's hiring late last month along with two other senior staffers in its Office of Communications Business Opportunities.

"The FCC must ensure that the communications field is competitive, generates widespread opportunities, and is open to new ideas from all sources," Genachowksi said in a statement announcing the hires on July 29. "This exceptionally talented team will collaborate on the policies and legal framework necessary to expand opportunities for women, minorities, and small businesses to participate in the communications marketplace."

Prior to joining the FCC, Lloyd most recently served as vice president for strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Education Fund, where he specialized in media and telecommunications. Lloyd has also served as an adjunct professor of public policy at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute and taught communications policy as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Lloyd, who worked at NBC and CNN as a broadcast journalist prior to becoming a communications attorney, has also worked as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and as general counsel at the Benton Foundation, a nonprofit organization aiming to ensure that media serve the public interest and enhance democracy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08 ... -stations/

Seton Motley, director of communications for the Media Research Center, said Lloyd instructed liberals to file complaints against conservative stations in "Forget the Fairness Doctrine."
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Seton was on Glenn Beck's show approximately 15 minutes before it ended,
and with Glenn going on vacation next week, he asked Motley to come back on the following week to talk MORE about this person and what his plan is

August 15, 5:07 PM
Columbia Conservative Examiner
Anthony G. Martin


We knew this was coming. We told you it would happen as far back as last year during the campaign.

It is now official. Barack Obama has launched a full, frontal attack on conservative talk radio, and he is doing it without re-implementing 'the Fairness Doctrine.'

But first, a bit of background.

Back in the days when radio was young and there were only a few stations, the Fairness Doctrine insured that listeners received a full array of political opinion in the interest of balance. As the years went by and as radio grew, so did other forms of media. Eventually there was television and then the Internet. And let's not forget that this was the era when newspapers dominated the media.

During Ronald Reagan's Presidency it was determined that 'the Fairness Doctrine' was no longer needed. Thus, the FCC dropped it. Shortly thereafter came conservative talk radio that gave citizens something they had been missing in most newspapers and in ALL of the 3 network news broadcasts--a conservative point of view in the media.

As conservative talk radio grew and began to dominate radio airwaves, the TV networks took a decidedly Leftward turn--much more so than they had already been. For example, anyone who watches MSNBC knows that the network is decidedly liberal in its bias and serves as a cheerleading squad for Barack Obama.

Newspapers, or at least the ones that have managed to stay in business, also turned decidedly Leftward, as we see in the New York Times, which can no longer be considered a reliable source of unbiased news.

This has served to make conservative talk radio even stronger, much to the chagrin of Democrats and liberals who wish to completely dominate ALL of the media. In spite of the fact that their point of view is given preference on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc., it grates on their nerves that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck dominate radio.

Thus, the liberal have stated that if they ever retake Congress and the White House a top priority would be to bring back 'the Fairness Doctrine' in order to reign in conservative talk radio and marginalize the voices of Limbaugh and Beck.

However, with this President, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is totally unnecessary. Obama can accomplish his goals by simply appointing a czar that isn't accountable to anyone but him.

He has done exactly that with the radio issue.

Obama recently appointed to the FCC an officer that we have never had before in America. It is called the 'Chief Diversity Officer,' the goal of which is to make sure that on radio there is a broad diversity of opinion. Nevermind that there is no such diversity in the mainstream media, i.e., TV and newspapers.

The man that Obama appointed to be the 'content czar' for talk radio is Mark Loyd. Loyd wrote a book in 2006, published by the University of Illinois Press, entitled, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, in which he proposes, among other things, that private radio broadcasters be required to pay a sum equal to their total operating costs in order to benefit public radio broadcasting.

Forget for a moment that no business can survive by paying some other entity a sum equal to their total operating expenses. This, of course, would drive private broadcasters out of business. But look at what he is proposing. He wants public broadcasting to be funded totally on the backs of private broadcasters, many of whom operate in the red.

Such idiotic, mutton-headed notions would be laughable were they not dead serious.

And that's not all.

Loyd stated in a report he authored in 2007 called 'The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio' that 91% of talk radio is conservative and 9% is 'progressive.' Further, he contended that large private broadcast corporations had driven liberals off the air and that there was a dire need for 'diversity of ownership.'

Of course, Loyd conveniently ignores the fact that of the 3 major television broadcast news organizations, 100% are 'progressive' and 0% are conservative. Among the major cable news networks, 75% are progressive while only 25% (Fox News) is conservative. This is the percentage one gets when considering CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox News.

But let's get back to the primary issue at hand. Loyd's appointment to the FCC is ominous proof that Barack Obama has declared open war on conservative talk radio. It is clear he wants all of radio to be just like ABC News, which set up its operation inside the White House so that Obama could push his government takeover of healthcare. ABC is his lapdog as are the other major networks.

Why would government officials want to launch such an assault on conservative talk radio when they practically have all of the rest of the media in their hip pocket?

The answer is chilling. Only tyrannical governments wish to silence the voices of dissent and totally dominate communications and media.

Make no mistake about this, my friends. This is an open assault on free speech, the First Amendment, and private enterprise.

Source: CNS NEWS

For commentary on a variety of news stories today, visit my blog at The Liberty Sphere.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3704-Columbia ... talk-radio

FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer Wants Private Broadcasters to Pay a Sum Equal to Their Total Operating Costs to Fund Public Broadcasting

Thursday, August 13, 2009
By Matt Cover
CNS News

(CNSNews.com) - Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.

Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.

The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress and that currently receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies each year. In fiscal 2009, it is receiving an appropriation of $400 million.

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,â€

Congress needs to get the President under control.

Dixie